LISWire: University of New Brunswick Libraries first in Canada to sign up to use OCLC Web-scale Management Services

DUBLIN, Ohio, June 23, 2011—The University of New Brunswick Libraries is the first Canadian library to sign up to use OCLC Web-scale Management Services, the Web-based cooperative library management tools for metadata management, acquisitions, circulation, license management and workflow improvement.

This is not the first time the University of New Brunswick Libraries has been at the forefront of adopting innovative new services in partnership with OCLC. In 2008, UNB was among the first institutions outside the United States to sign up and implement WorldCat Local, the Web-based OCLC discovery-to-delivery service that offers users integrated access to more than 800 million items in libraries around the world through WorldCat.

As a member of the OCLC Web-scale Management Services Advisory Council, John Teskey, Director of Libraries, University of New Brunswick, helped to shape and guide development of the innovative new cloud-based library management services.

“We have been involved in the development and evolution of WMS from a very early stage,” said Mr. Teskey. “Considering where the world is headed, it made sense to us to work within the library community with OCLC for a cloud-based library management solution. Our implementation of WorldCat Local has been very successful for discovery. We want to take library management services to the cloud as well.”

The University of New Brunswick was interested in keeping costs down and at the same time, wanted to offer emerging and transformative services to students and faculty.

“We recognized the limits of our legacy systems,” said Steve Rosenfeld, Director of Library Systems, Harriet Irving Library, UNB Fredericton Campus. “Having the OCLC platform and API available to write and share applications is important to us. It’s exciting for staff and libraries around the world to be able to share ideas about how to do things more efficiently. We expect to see the benefits of WMS now, with even better things coming as more libraries work together in the future.”

The University of New Brunswick plans to have OCLC Web-scale Management Services in production by May 2012, ultimately using cloud-based services running from servers in a Canadian data center.

In addition to the University of New Brunswick and 35 libraries in the United States, BIBSYS, the Norwegian library consortium, signed an agreement with OCLC to base its new library management system on Web-scale Management Services, which will include management tools for more than 100 libraries in Norway. The Tilburg University Library, in the Netherlands, announced earlier this month that it selected WMS and WorldCat Local as its new library management solution and integrated discovery-to-delivery service.

Of those libraries that have committed to using OCLC Web-scale Management Services, 21 are already in production and using the services.

“Libraries are realizing the benefits of not having to manage local hardware and software, and reducing the total cost of ownership for library systems,” said Andrew Pace, OCLC Executive Director of Networked Library Services. “There is also the cooperative benefit of gaining access to the work of the global library community—first with WorldCat and then with Web-scale Management Services. Finally, streamlining library operations frees staff to work on higher priority tasks for their particular community.”

The University of New Brunswick serves some 11,000 students from two main campuses—one in Fredericton, New Brunswick’s capital, and the other in Saint John, New Brunswick’s largest city. The university offers an international experience by attracting students from more than 100 countries.

“The University of New Brunswick is an innovator and leader, not just of Canadian libraries, but of libraries worldwide,” said Daniel Boivin, Executive Director, OCLC Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. “The OCLC cooperative is fortunate to have members like UNB to help take us to the next level of library innovation.”
More information about the University of New Brunswick Libraries can be found on the website.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat on the Web at www.worldcat.org. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.